Farting through my Fingertips

extracted from comments to previous post:

Saltation :

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to demand an apology from the Italians for the Roman invasion and occupation of Britain and the associated stripping of British assets, mass slaughter, religious persecution of the Druids and enslavement of our peoples."

Herebe :

Blast. Rumbled. I've always used the 'we don't blame the romans for colonising us' line when listening to other people whining about how the British Empire wounded them. Get over it. Or give America back to the native Americans.
Gesture politics, it's the only way.

Saltation :

Me, I'm putting together a DAMNING indictment of Cro Magnon man.
I tell you, I'll never need not whinge again.

There's been some hoo-haa in the UK recently as a result of the government setting up a website for non-elite people ("voters") to submit petitions to the Prime Minister electronically.

The initiative has been howled down by certain ministers after a terrible abuse of the facility occurred: a substantial proportion of the country took one matter very seriously and used the petition process in the manner intended. How dare the people register en masse their strong dislike of a proposal?? They should know their place!

But lurking on the site is some comedy gold.

e.g., my personal favourite:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to suck a trifle with a straw while swimming in treacle.

"This petition has been rejected because:
• It was outside the remit or powers of the Prime Minister and Government"

Sounds like Tony Blair could do with a better exercise regimen in order to improve his aerobic fitness and hand-eye(-mouth) coördination, but I find it greatly encouraging that he both recognises and acknowledges his own personal weaknesses. I also like the implication that he actually tried and failed before he answered.

But there are many others:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to officially recognise Pete's mum an official public resource.

Fantastic. Pete's mum's the first, but I can see this recognition of simple fact as an Idea Whose Time Has COME. I predict this will sweep the world and change the very way we think about laundry.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Criminalise all acts of sexual intercourse between males.

Fourth & fifth signatories: Ben Dover and Phil McCavity.
Eleventh and last: getagripthisisthe21stcentury

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to repeal the offside law.

"The art of goal-hanging has all but disappeared from the professional game. The PM should force the FA, by threat of not getting knighthoods, to repeal the offside law in England. This will save millions of hours wasted debating whether or not 'he was level' thus improving national productivity."

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to demand an apology from the Italians for the Roman invasion and occupation of Britain and the associated stripping of British assets, mass slaughter, religious persecution of the Druids and enslavement of our peoples.

Fantastic. At LAST the average British man and woman on the street has a GENUINE reason for claiming victimhood.
Time to hit the streets, chanting:

"What do we want?"

"The right to claim victimhood as an excuse for not taking responsibility for our own behaviour and as a justification for demanding something for nothing!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

Land Rights for Picts!!

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to shelve any evil plans to remove the brains of middle aged heterosexual males and accept that they are a minority with equal rights to other citizens and immigrants.

"We believe that Mr Blair must refuse to continue with any secret plans that may be bought forth to remove the brains of middle-aged, white, hetereosexual, British males. Such a secret plan, if put in force, would certainly put an end to any non-politically-correct dissent, but it could also end such fine British traditions as having an outrageous opinion, going to the pub and ignoring the wife."

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to put a tax on silly petitions.

Well, it seems some lurkers WITHIN Whitehall have risen to the challenge.

There was recently a petition posted:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to recognise Jedi Knights as a religion on par with Christianity, Islam and other beliefs.

"The belief of Jedi Knights in 'the Force' is no more irrational than
any other religious belief - but with less bigotry."

And the formal reply was sent out this week, stating the formal position and guaranteed response of the elected government of the day:

The Government has no overarching role in regulating or recognising
personal belief or faith. The UK has a long held commitment to
freedom of worship and belief, and people are free to form religions
and free to follow their own practices and beliefs provided they
remain within the law.

May the Force be with you.

omnes: And also with you.

This is 65 seconds of bouncy invigorating en-vimifying cheery-uppery brilliance:

Derek the Cat
in
Frog of the Day

"Tune: Theme from 'Luxury' by Fantastic Plastic Machine. Turn it up loud!"
via Whoopee!


Mind you... Hands up everyone who CAN'T determine the sex of the film-maker before the 30 second mark.* Clue at 10secs, underlining at 17, repeated underlining thereafter. Hint: the film-maker is actively encouraging precisely the behaviour they're nominally complaining about...



* next film: Derek Among The Pigeons. heh.

Sit down in your seat and wait till the plane takes off.
Then:
1. Open your Laptop Computer
2. Turn it on
3. Make sure your neighbour is able to see the screen
4. Open this link
5. Close your eyes and turn your face to the ceiling

Hmm. I'm not convinced my Saltation post is tidy. The last few paras jump ahead too much, to my mind.

But if you're interested in learning why your social fears and personal insecurities are the reason why humans now dominate the earth, you may enjoy the logic.

We have been selectively bred to be insecure

Airport, runways, people walking on walls.

Note to self:

If you don't get home until 6, utterly blathered, do not -- do NOT -- think to yourself "I'll just check my email before I go to bed."

And when you've checked your email at 6am, do not -- do NOT -- think to yourself, "I'll just fire off a few replies and oh look here's something funny and clever, I should blog that."

Just don't.


I'm going for a jog now.
My head can't possibly feel any worse so that means there's an outside chance of upside.

(via cal via coates)

God I hate pretentious arse-covering process-focussed time- and money-wasters.

An email received late in the evening from a recruitment agency:

Job Ref: NNNN Project Manager XXXX 2 months+

A small development organisation has recently won a lot of new funded contracts, all with an e-business theme, for SMEs, that all require work done on them to quickly begin delivery. If interested please e-mail attaching your current CV and detailing how you meet the following four criteria:

1. Private and public project management experience
2. Prince 2 qualified
3. Working with SMEs
4. Working for a service organisation

Deadline 9am Monday 19 Feb.

One business day deadline, eh? Unlikely. Incredibly unlikely. This little "urgency" meme has spread from one agent to the other in this agency, ever since the first one sought to look more important. Inwardly-directed strutting re Faux-Urgency is a dead giveaway that someone's useless but egotistical.

Ignore that, that's just an irritation.

Critically, look at those criteria.
Absolutely dislocated from the needs of the client's task.

Unless of course the client is a time-wasting process-centric leech on public funds. In which case, this is code for "PLU" -- we want People Like Us.

Which is more than likely.

And that arrogant little line saying in essence "you MUST send me a CV but I'm not going to read it -- you must dance for me and save me having to understand the role or do my own job."

Fuck this. I'm not going to get the job anyway so I might as well see if I can get a clue into the head of this guy.

My reply:

"you need to detail why you think your criteria match the job requirements."

Only couched in non-insulting words.

J.

I am very interested in this role, as I have a lot of e-business experience both technically and in business development.

But I am very confused by the "criteria". They are unrelated to any deliverable or even activity implicit in the role. In fact, in the case of applying PRINCE2 to an e-business environment, they are actively antagonistic to success, as has been demonstrated time and time again.

If your client could explain why they regard these criteria as primary considerations in their decision-making process, I would be happy to apply.

regards
Sal

I wait with bated breath any reply to my baited email.

(see below)